Monroe county, Michigan, saw one of the largest swings in the country from Obama to Trump – and so far many swing voters are likely to go for Trump even as they have plenty of doubt
It’s not that James Padot hugely admires Donald Trump or his values.
After all, Padot spent more than four decades as a pipe fitter, a skilled trade that provided a good living but relied on the power of his labour union for work and to ensure he was decently paid.
Continue reading...As Democrats marched the articles to the Senate, the president basked in policy success. Many think re-election is coming
It was, the White House tweeted on Friday, “an incredible week” for Donald Trump. On that, no one could disagree. But what kind of incredible depended on which end of Pennsylvania Avenue you were standing.
Related: How to dump Trump: Rick Wilson on Running Against the Devil
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s legal team for the impeachment trial will include Starr, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz and Robert Ray
A delegation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is in Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico today as part of an investigation into the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy and the use of tent courts to process those cases.
Thousands of families are trapped in limbo at the Matamoros, Mexico refugee camp because of @realDonaldTrump's disastrous #RemainInMexico policy. No one should ever be subjected to these inhumane living conditions. No one. We are better than this. #DemsAtTheBorder pic.twitter.com/jovxC3WhHY
The conditions in the camps are heartbreaking. They get water rationed from a bucket. They see a doctor in what looks like a large portapotty. There are so many children. Before Trump’s #RemainInMexico policy these families could wait in the US for their asylum court dates. pic.twitter.com/FNcpGlF5rM
A jury of seven men and five women were picked for the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial today after a two-week selection process in which scores of people were dismissed.
Opening statements are expected to begin on Wednesday.
During jury selection, prosecutors had accused Weinstein’s lawyers of systematically trying to keep young women off the panel, though the final makeup of the jury turned out to be more closely balanced.
For its part, the defense raised an outcry and demanded a mistrial because one of the jurors is the author of an upcoming novel about young women dealing with predatory older men. The request was denied, but Weinstein’s lawyers continued to claim outside court that the juror had withheld the information on her questionnaire.
Related: More than 100 women protest Trump and Weinstein with anti-rape anthem
Continue reading...Yang describes 2012 attack to CNN as she and 31 other women sue Dr Robert Hadden and Columbia University
The wife of the Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says she was sexually assaulted by her obstetrician-gynecologist while she was pregnant with the couple’s first child.
Evelyn Yang said in an interview televised on Thursday by CNN that the assault happened in 2012, and she was initially afraid to tell anyone. She and 31 other women are now suing the doctor and hospital system, saying they conspired and enabled the crimes.
Continue reading...House prosecutors to arrive at Senate to formally open trial as Lev Parnas tells reporters president was fully aware of efforts to pressure Ukraine
An independent government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said the White House budget office violated the law when it froze US military aid to Ukraine.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the report said.
Yesterday, the House voted to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, setting in motion the third impeachment Senate trial in US history.
Here’s how that looks today:
Continue reading...Candidates and longtime friends trade angry remarks before Tom Steyer offers an awkward hello
CNN has released the audio of the testy exchange between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders that took place following Tuesday’s Democratic debate.
After the debate wrapped, Bernie Sanders outstretched his hand to Elizabeth Warren. Warren did not take it, and the two progressive candidates, who until recently have avoided criticizing each other publicly, exchanged words – which until now were inaudible.
Continue reading...The Iowa debate ended in a quarrel between the two progressives, but there were other moments to remember
The final Democratic debate before voting begins in the Iowa caucus early next month ended in a testy confrontation between progressive senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Related: Elizabeth Warren's confrontation with Bernie Sanders caps testy debate night
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Hours before the debate on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote to send its impeachment charges against Donald Trump to the Senate the following day.
Even though six Democratic presidential candidates failed to meet the polling requirement for tonight’s debate, one candidate who did manage to cross that threshold will not be onstage tonight: Michael Bloomberg.
Continue reading...A leak of stolen data could potentially affect the impeachment process and the US election contest
Russian military hackers tried to steal emails from the Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, had a seat on the board, a US cybersecurity firm said.
The energy company Burisma Holdings was at the center of attempts by president Donald Trump last July to pressure Ukrainian authorities to announce an investigation into the Bidens for purported corruption, an effort that has led to the Republican being impeached by the US House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Continue reading...Sanders has called reports of his remarks ‘ludicrous’ as tensions between campaigns surge ahead of first votes
Elizabeth Warren has said Bernie Sanders told her during a private meeting that he did not believe a woman could beat Donald Trump in 2020, a version of events that Sanders vehemently denies.
In a statement issued on Monday evening, Warren offered her recollections of their conversation, a one-on-one discussion which took place in Washington at the end of 2018, when each senator was laying the groundwork for a presidential run.
Continue reading...Booker emailed supporters announcing move to shutter his campaign after struggling with fundraising and failing to qualify for debates
Donald Trump is having a busy day on Twitter, including going after the Democrats over their reaction to the assassination of Gen Qassem Suleimani.
“The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Suleimani was ‘eminent’ [sic – he means “imminent”] or not, & was my team in agreement,” the president wrote, in a tweet that was deleted and reissued, spelling fixed.
Related: Esper contradicts Trump claim Iran planned attacks on four US embassies
The Democrats and the Fake News are trying to make terrorist Suleimani into a wonderful guy, only because I did what should have been done for 20 years. Anything I do, whether it’s the economy, military, or anything else, will be scorned by the Rafical [sic] Left, Do Nothing Democrats!
The corrupted Dems trying their best to come to the Ayatollah's rescue.#NancyPelosiFakeNews pic.twitter.com/a0ksPHeXCy
Related: Iranian police fired live rounds to disperse protesters, say witnesses
Senator Cory Booker announced Monday that he is suspending his presidential campaign.
He sent the following email to supporters announcing the move:
Friend,
Nearly one year ago, I got in the race for president because I believed to my core that the answer to the common pain Americans are feeling right now, the answer to Donald Trump’s hatred and division, is to reignite our spirit of common purpose to take on our biggest challenges and build a more just and fair country for everyone.
Continue reading...Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge funder, has claimed picking a nominee to face Donald Trump in November is “more about judgment than experience”.
Related: Impeachment: Trump fumes as Pelosi prepares to send articles to the Senate
Continue reading...Susan Collins and other Republicans open to allowing witnesses in impeachment trial, a key sticking point in impasse between House and Senate
Kari Paul here, logging off for the weekend! Here is a summary of the key events of the last few hours:
Two parents whose children were separated from them as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border policies are suing the federal government for $12m, claiming the children were subject to abuse and neglect while in federal custody.
“The United States government tore these families apart pursuant to a cruel and unconstitutional policy: The government intended to inflict terror and harm on these small children and their fathers, as a means of deterring others from seeking to enter the United States”, said the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in U.S. District Court of Arizona.
According to the lawsuit, the fathers were separated from their children for more than two months, and the federal government gave little, if any, information regarding the location and safety of the children.
The families “suffered, and continue to suffer, physical, mental, and emotional harm,” the lawsuit states. More than a year after they were reunited, the lawsuit says the children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Continue reading...Mark Esper says memo on US troops’ ‘onward movement’ from Iraq is not accurate and ‘there’s been no decision’
Kari Paul here, logging off for the night. Here are today’s top events to make note of:
Pete Buttigieg is heading back to Iowa on Jan. 12 to do more campaigning ahead of the upcoming caucus there, his team announced on Monday.
According to the announcement, Buttigieg has now visited Iowa 21 times, with visits to 49 counties to hold 100 events across the state.
Continue reading...Ed Pilkington hears from some of the most influential journalists in the US on how hard lessons were learned after their coverage of the 2016 election. But will 2020 really be any different? Plus: Carol Anderson on voter suppression and the US election
Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 came as a major shock to most news organisations in the US, which had all but anointed Hillary Clinton as the next president. But Trump’s ability to garner attention and break rules and norms had resulted in billions of dollars’ worth of free coverage, which he combined with an ability to wriggle out of serious scrutiny.
All this left a major challenge for how newsrooms across the US should cover his presidency, and how they should now cover his attempt to be re-elected. The Guardian US chief reporter, Ed Pilkington, has been working in partnership with the Columbia Journalism Review and spoken to 30 leading editors, reporters, TV executives and media commentators, asking for their reflections at the start of a year of election coverage. In this podcast, we hear from the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Teen Vogue’s Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Frank Bruni of the New York Times.
Continue reading...Company’s work in 68 countries laid bare with release of more than 100,000 documents
An explosive leak of tens of thousands of documents from the defunct data firm Cambridge Analytica is set to expose the inner workings of the company that collapsed after the Observer revealed it had misappropriated 87 million Facebook profiles.
More than 100,000 documents relating to work in 68 countries that will lay bare the global infrastructure of an operation used to manipulate voters on “an industrial scale” is set to be released over the next months.
Continue reading...Killing of Suleimani will help Trump among his supporters, but it could hurt him at the ballot box after promises of ‘America first’
“We have God on our side.” They have long been some of the most chilling words in the English language. Perhaps never more so than when uttered by Donald Trump in a re-election campaign.
The president made the claim at an Evangelicals for Trump rally at a megachurch in Miami on Friday night, a day after taking America to the brink of war with the killing in Baghdad of Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top general and potential future leader.
Continue reading...The Minnesota senator is reaching out to Iowa’s smallest towns and rural settlements ahead of the vital February caucus and seeing increasing numbers
Craig Hiller, an Iowa farmer, had just enjoyed a hot chocolate on Amy Klobuchar’s campaign bus as it made a stop in the small town of Rockwell City, population just 2,100.
Hiller, whose state is the vital first one to cast ballots in the party’s nomination race to pick an opponent to Donald Trump, was impressed by the Minnesota senator, a fellow midwesterner who desperately needs a strong showing in Iowa to boost her 2020 presidential campaign.
Continue reading...Senate minority leader made remark on emails about the freeze on Ukraine’s military aid
Warren released a sweeping plan that, among other things, would raise the hourly minimum wage to $15 and ending a program that allows employers to pay disabled workers much less.
“Building economic security for people with disabilities means rewriting the rules of the economy to foster inclusivity, value their labor, and end labor market discrimination and exploitation,” the 2020 presidential candidate said in a statement.
Hillary Clinton has taken on a new role as a chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast.
For the former US secretary of state, senator and first lady, the role will be mostly ceremonial.
As Chancellor @HillaryClinton will have three main roles:
1.Presiding at degree congregations.
2.Ambassador.
3.Advisor, available to the @QUBVChancellor and senior management as a sounding board and to provide counsel and guidance.
More: https://t.co/6NlonwYmXK #LoveQUB pic.twitter.com/iJKuJl4bic
Key Democrats and election analysts say more needs to be done to ensure safe elections free from ‘foreign malicious actors’
Potential electronic voting equipment failures and cyber attacks from Russia and other countries pose persistent threats to the 2020 elections, election security analysts and key Democrats warn.
Related: Embassy protesters in Iraq deal symbolic blow to US prestige
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